CATALYST

Description

Over three months of 2021, eight exceptional and emerging comic-book artists have been mentored by four established graphic novel creators. Catalyst is the result. Born of SelfMadeHero's 12-week Graphic Anthology Programme, this collection presents pieces from mentors Asia Alfasi, Catherine Anyango Grunewald, Sonia Leong and Woodrow Phoenix alongside work from up-and-coming new voices, with the aim of reflecting the diversity and wealth of talent in the UK comics scene. United by a single theme - "catalyst" - the contributors have each written and drawn an eight-page story to explore ideas of reaction and transformation. Edited by Ayoola Solarin, this provocative, intriguing and revelatory anthology invites readers to consider the situations, people and events that might accelerate change in their own lives and in our society as a whole.

Asia Alfasi has won several national and international manga awards for her short stories, earning her a position in London's acclaimed 2014 "Comics Unmasked" exhibition at the British Library. She is currently working on a graphic novel based on her own childhood in Libya; a series based on a character from Islamic folklore, Juha: The Tales of Sheikh Nasruddin; and Native Narratives, a collection of Libyan folk tales - with the ultimate aim of harnessing the medium as a tool for cross-cultural dialogue. Catherine Anyango Grunewald, a published graphic novelist and teacher, taught at the Royal College of Art in London for 10 years and is now a Senior Lecturer in Illustration at Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm. She illustrated a graphic novel adaptation of Conrad's Heart of Darkness for SelfMadeHero in 2010, and in 2019 was awarded the Navigator Art on Paper Prize, the biggest award for work-on-paper in the world. She is currently working on a graphic novel adaptation of Sister Helen Prejean's Dead Man Walking (Random House, forthcoming). In 2021, Phaidon's Vitamin D3 included her among the 100 best practitioners of contemporary drawing. Sonia Leong is a comics/manga illustrator and author of many drawing guides, including Draw Manga: Complete Skills (Search Press). Her debut graphic novel was the Manga Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet (SelfMadeHero), and her most recent book was Great Lives: Marie Curie (B.E.S. Publishing). She also illustrates for children's books, fashion, advertising, film and television. She is the Director of Sweatdrop Studios, an independent comic publisher based in the United Kingdom. Woodrow Phoenix is a writer, artist and graphic designer based in London and Cambridge. His work has appeared in national UK newspapers including The Guardian, The Independent and the London Evening Standard, in magazines and comics collections across Europe, the US and Japan and in television projects for Walt Disney and Cartoon Network. His books include Plastic Culture, the critically acclaimed Rumble Strip, the award-winning anthology Nelson and the experimental She Lives, a gallery installation that is also a graphic novel. Woodrow is a Visiting Lecturer teaching the MA in Graphic Novels and Children's Books at Middlesex University. His most recent book is Crash Course (2020).